In a sense, this is about playing God, and about postponing your time of exit—if only just a wee bit, like about 50 percent. And if one definition of God is the unknown, the boundaries of the unknown are being pushed. As is the definition of the finite. Immortality. Elixir of life.
Now imagine…
…As you sleepily brush your teeth in the morning, your smart toothbrush is picking up and uploading megabytes of data from the microbes in your saliva. Equipped with microscopic IOT devices inside you, on your skin and all around you, data by the gigabyte is being picked up by ubiquitous receptors around you, by the nanosecond, to determine your current state of health—converted instantly and intelligently into feedback for optimum health.
...Being unwell, that too rarely, and being able to access the entire bank of distilled medical knowledge, Artificial Intelligence (AI) aided top of the line expertise and advice in real time. Layered on then by a doctor, that too if really necessary. Essentially this would mean that actionable essence of the entire medical fraternity is available to you 24x7—leading to the productivity of the medical profession at a 100x level of what it is today in terms of patient care and patient throughput. The implications on both health, length of life and the quality of life are staggering.
...That individualised body parts were easily 3D-printed and replaced; just as standard engine parts are in an automobile much before calamitous breakdown (read death). The human perennially in form, and the inevitability of death postponed. Spawning an industry feeding billions of body parts to a youthful but ageing population. And a veritable revolution in material sciences makes this possible.
...That the average per capita consumption of medicines on the planet was just two percent of what it is today—microscopically delivered to the precise point of contact in the affected body part and to the sharpest dosage required. Implication—kidneys and livers need only to exert just a little to manage only between five and 10 percent of the level of toxicity that they manage today. Another implication—the pharma industry reformats from selling drug tonnages to developing core competencies in drug delivery within the body.
...Nano bots being remotely operated in your blood stream—much like an army of mechanics fixing the plumbing, blockages removed, extracting rogue growths and in general ‘fixing things’. Even precisely delivering sub microscopic quantities of medicines.
Dunzo inside!.
...That Hippocrates’ famous wish that food be medicine stands fulfilled. You will consume bespoke food combinations to make your next meal a function of what your body really needs basis your current state of wellness. And meets the exacting standards of your personal tastebuds.
...That congenital diseases have been minimised by gene editing to make future generations much stronger and more resilient than what we are today—and that there is an expanded list of defeated diseases like cancer of all varieties, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
...Finally, that your quality of life, emotionally, mentally and physically at 100, is exactly what we now know it to be at 50—and that means your faculties, physical, mental and emotional, are on high-speed cruise control. What you always wished to be. Youthful, ageing gracefully, and all there.
Does all the above appear to be coming out of a state of hyper-ventilated imagination? Sounds like fantasy, literally? Are we there? Far-fetched, yes. Plausible, yes. Possible, yes again. While humans have always fantasised about being eternal, exponential steps are being taken presently across the world in collaborating laboratories to make this dream come true, even if partially.
Never before have so many devices and data streams come together from so many disciplines, combined and distilled into real-time insights and decision making. This will significantly alleviate the human condition and significantly add to longevity. Medical science democratised, medical interventions infinitely more precise, less complex, less invasive and universally affordable.
Impressive is the list of the brave attempting the impossible— throwing their weight and wealth behind this vision. Jeff Bezos (Altos Labs), Google (Calico), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures) Sergey Young (Longevity Vision), Peter Diamandis (Human Longevity), to name a very few.
The ubiquity of technology and its capability to deny, defeat and prevent disease, is inexorably moving towards an absence of disease—longevity in other words.
This imagination is merely an extrapolation of what we already know of ourselves today. Be assured that 100 will be the next 60.
Rohtash Mal
rohtash.mal@gmail.com
Ex-corporate honcho and organisational yoda; now entrepreneur and stargazer